


Flower Power

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [16]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anger, Angry Lance (Voltron), Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood, Bullying, Concussions, Fist Fights, Gen, Hate Plague, Insults, Mind Control, Prompt: Kind Restraints, Restraints, Sick Lance (Voltron), Voltron Lion to Paladin Psychic Bond, Voltron Paladin to Paladin Psychic Bond, Worried Hunk (Voltron), Worried Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Flowers are harmless, right? Well, maybe Earth flowers are. Space flowers? Not so much.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Shiro (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554010
Comments: 20
Kudos: 269
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Flower Power

**Author's Note:**

> Ok I'm so sorry this fic took me a month and a half. Writing Lance is hard, ok? I don't know how Lance stans do it.

It was a quiet day in the Castle. Usually days like this made Lance feel like bouncing off the walls, and he would’ve been if he hadn’t just gotten back from a planetside expedition. No diplomacy this time, just him going down to an uninhabited planet to track down some flower or another for the Olkari, enjoying what little time he had outside of a spaceship before he had to go back to recycled air and artificial light. 

Now he sat in the lab, resting his chin on his arms and staring at the plant he’d so meticulously tracked down while Pidge and Hunk sat at another table, analyzing and discussing it in low tones. 

“What did the Olkari want this for again?” he asked, already starting to get bored without someone to talk to. His jaunt down to the planet had helped with the restlessness, but Lance was distractible on even the best of days. 

Pidge gave an exasperated sigh, but Hunk, ever the dutiful friend, replied, “Ryner thinks they might be able to refine the sap and use it to boost fuel reserves for the ships that aren’t Lions.”

Lance tilted his head and examined the flower more closely. It was girthy: the pale pink stem was as thick as his wrist, the neon blue blossom bigger around than a basketball, even closed up like it was. When he found it he had questioned whether it was ready to be picked, but Ryner said it was fine. 

“Do flowers normally have sap?” 

“Not on Earth,” Pidge answered. 

“But space is weird like that,” Hunk tacked on. 

Lance snorted. “Yeah, you can say that again.” After another moment of silence that threatened a return to boredom, Lance took matters into his own hands. If Pidge and Hunk were gonna do their experiments, why shouldn’t he do some of his own? 

The first thing he studied was the stem. There was barely any color to it at all, just the slightest hint of a hue, and it curved in a serpentine pattern for about a foot before the bulb emerged. 

After gathering his visual data, he moved on to his next criterion. Worming one hand out from underneath his chin on the table, he very solemnly gave the stem a poke. When he collected it all he’d been able to feel through his gloves was that it was rather soft and squishy. With a bare fingertip he could detect small ridges like scales, or the covers on a pinecone when a storm is coming. 

The bulb was more interesting. Even the undersides of the petals were bright teal, and the way they coiled together to seal away the bloom reminded him of a spiral. He wasn’t sure where the sap they were looking for was supposed to be, but if this plant worked the same as Earth flowers, it probably wouldn’t be in the bulb. 

So he reached up and poked that too. 

It was… surprisingly slimey. He hadn’t been able to see it, but he could feel it-- a cool goo that clung to his skin even as he pulled away in disgust. He opened his mouth to tell Pidge and Hunk, only to be distracted when he saw the bulb twitch. 

Maybe twitch wasn’t exactly the right word, but it was the first thing that popped into his head when he saw all of the petals curl in more tightly towards the center. They held there for a moment before returning to their previous position, but then they coiled again, and again, like a heart that had just begun to beat. 

“Uhhhh, guys?” he said, pulling back from the table. “Something’s--”

Suddenly, all of the petals unfurled at once. He caught a glance at the insides of the petals, glowing bright, almost blinding blue, then he forgot about them entirely when he saw the center. Where the pollen would’ve been on an Earth flower was instead a thick, viscous fluid, in probably the most unnerving, disgusting shade of greenish yellow he’d ever seen in his life. 

The petals twitched again and peeled back from the center. Then, before he could react: 

_ Splat! _

Lance was covered head to toe in the flower goo, a strange smell somewhere between stagnant water and lemon air freshener filling his nose, and the lab was utterly silent. 

Hunk and Pidge burst into laughter at the same time that Lance began to freak out. 

“Ewwwwww!” he squealed, flapping his arms furiously in an attempt to fling the goo off of him. “Ew ew ew ew  _ ew!  _ Guys, quit laughing, your stupid plant just puked all over me!”

Pidge was inches away from falling off of her chair, arms wrapped around her stomach and tears in her eyes as she laughed. Hunk was at least attempting to seem sympathetic, though the grin he hid behind his hand was obvious on the rest of his face. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he gasped when he noticed Lance’s glare. “I just--” he collapsed into helpless giggling, and it was several seconds before either of them could speak again. Meanwhile Lance stood there, dripping plant goop onto the floor, soaked and disgusting and definitely  _ not  _ amused.

“We tell you all the time,” Pidge said when she regained her breath, swiping her fingers under her glasses to get the stray tears. “Not to touch the samples.”

Lance pouted shamelessly, and after a little longer Hunk got himself under control and put his sympathetic face on. 

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry, really. We didn’t know it would do that. Ryner just said to get the sap, nothing about how to get it.”

“Maybe don’t unnecessarily poke alien plants in the future?” Pidge suggested with a smirk. Lance gave her a very slimy middle finger. 

“You should go get cleaned up,” said Hunk. “That stuff looks like it stains.”

“Hmph,” Lance huffed crossly to himself as he turned towards the door. He didn’t mind admitting that he was irritated-- you would be too if you got covered in plant goop. “When Allura asks why there’s goo all over the floor, you can tell her it's Ryner’s fault.”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Hunk called after him. Lance caught just a snippet of their laughter resuming as he left the lab. 

He scowled to himself all the way down the hall to his bunk. Whatever good mood he’d gained from his field trip was now thoroughly ruined, and the itch of anger was beginning to settle under his skin. He was the class clown, sure, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being laughed at. 

As soon as he reached his bunk he headed for the bathroom to shower off, still fuming to himself as he pulled his clothes off. He really hoped Hunk was wrong about it staining, because if his only set of Earth clothing got ruined by goddamn alien plant goo he would swear off being a paladin right on the spot. 

He turned on the shower and cranked it as hot as he could stand. Thankfully it washed the goo off of him easily, but the water couldn’t do anything about the slimy feeling sticking to the bottom of his stomach. 

Lance didn’t like feeling angry. Annoyed, sure. Irritated? Par for the course with Mullet around. Offended? Second nature. But genuine anger didn’t feel good. It made him feel tight, and hot, and unstable. It was so much easier to just laugh it off, or make a performance out of his huffing and storming around without ever acknowledging how he actually felt. But now he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling, even when he knew the whole incident was his own fault. 

He stood under the spray for a while, brooding, but eventually realized he was going to get pruney soon and got out. All of the goo was gone, but that smell lingered, no matter how much weird Altean cologne he put on to mask it. 

Well, it didn’t necessarily matter. He was planning on sulking in his room for a few hours, just until the sick feeling of rage went away; hopefully it would be gone by then. 

He was just about to flop face down on his bunk when a sound in the hallway caught his attention. 

Footsteps. 

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Keith didn’t train away every free hour he had. He trained away approximately three quarters of the free hours he had; the remaining quarter was spent following quieter pursuits. Reading, for instance. Studying the star map. Learning Altean. Things he could do by himself, without the others distracting him with all of their noise, without getting into some argument or another with Lance. 

That’s exactly what he happened to be doing. Heading towards the library, finishing up his Altean lesson on his tablet, minding his own business. As far as he knew the Garrison trio were in the lab working on their project for the Olkari. He wasn’t expecting Lance’s door to slide open right as he walked by, making him jump nearly out of his skin. 

“Jesus, Lance,” he snapped, already bristling in expectation of the teasing to come. But when he turned his head, Lance wasn’t laughing at him, or smirking in anticipation, or any of his usual tells. Instead he was just… standing there, staring, an utterly deadpan expression on his face. 

Keith frowned and shifted on his feet. After a few more moments of painfully awkward silence, he asked, “Do you want something?”

Lance’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t say anything at first, but right as Keith was about to give up and walk away, he spoke up. 

“I really hate you, you know that?”

Keith sucked in a quick breath. It wasn’t exactly new information, but he hadn’t been expecting it, and the sheer vitriol in Lance’s voice caught him off guard. He hunched his shoulders protectively and summoned enough anger to cover the hurt. 

“Yeah, you’ve made that perfectly clear. Any more breaking news?”

Lance’s expression didn’t shift, but his hands curled into fists at his sides. He took a single step forward, out of the doorway, and Keith found himself stepping back. There was something about the tension in the air that had him hearing alarm bells. 

“You’re arrogant, hot-headed, selfish, reckless, rude, untrustworthy, and the biggest liability on this entire team.” His tone grew increasingly harsh as he went down his list of insults, and when he took another step into the hall, Keith slid one foot into a fighting stance. Just in case. “If you weren’t such a teacher’s pet with Shiro, we would’ve gotten rid of you weeks ago.”

Keith bared his teeth in a snarl. “What the hell is your problem?” His chest was tightening, giving way to the rage. But, in the back of his mind, he was baffled. Lance could be mean, sure, but he’d never been this mad before. He’d never looked so much like he meant it. 

“You’re my problem,” Lance snapped back. “You’re everyone’s problem. I wish you had just stayed in the desert where you belong.”

_ Ouch.  _ Keith quickly slipped his tablet into his pocket-- years of fights had taught him when to see them coming-- and told himself he wasn’t going to throw the first punch. “You sure about that? You wouldn’t have found Blue without me.”

Lance’s lip twitched. Keith hadn’t noticed before now, but at some point in the conversation his eyes had changed. No longer blank and emotionless; now they were filled with pure, unbridled fury. 

He didn’t say another word. Just cocked his fist back and took a swing. 

Cold adrenaline rushing through his veins, Keith dodged the first punch. He half expected Lance to give up after that, go back to his usual words as weapons approach, but he didn’t. He just scowled and came at him again. Keith dodged again and darted to the side, instinctively aiming a light jab at Lance’s side. It wasn’t hard, he didn’t want to hurt him, but apparently he and Lance weren’t in agreement on that point. 

He wasn’t surprised by the hit like Keith had hoped. He easily followed Keith’s turn and caught him by the back of his jacket. With more strength than Keith was expecting, he swung him around and threw him face first up against the wall. 

The impact kicked Keith’s survival instincts into gear. He shoved himself off of the wall, driving his back into Lance’s chest to knock him back and away. For a split second he caught a whiff of something strange. Like old water and fake, chemical lemon. Then he made a break for it down the hall. 

This wasn’t just a normal fist fight. Keith could see it in Lance’s eyes-- for whatever reason, Lance was out for blood. He didn’t plan on giving it to him. 

He heard the pounding of footsteps behind him, echoing in the metal hallway as Lance gave chase. Keith pushed himself to run faster and made for the bridge. The last place he’d seen Shiro. 

After thirty more seconds of running, heart pounding behind his ribs, Keith turned the final corner. He didn’t bother trying to slow down to hit the button for the door, he simply crashed into the wall, making the hall ring with the deafening  _ clang,  _ and slid inside the moment it was open wide enough. Lance was right behind him— he felt the Blue Paladin’s long fingers brush his jacket as he forced his body through the door. 

Thankfully, Shiro was still there, staring at the star map the way he had been for the last few days, going over and over their attack plan in his head. He turned with a surprised look on his face as they entered, but that was the only glance Keith got. Lance was still pursuing; he had to keep running, turning in a tight curve around the steering platform and the shapes that stood around it.

“Keith! Lance!” Allura’s voice rang out, tight and imperial. “What are you  _ doing?”  _ In normal circumstances, Keith would’ve recognized the true meaning of the question: Keith, what have you done now? But now his brain was addled. Lance should’ve given up by now. He should’ve stopped when Keith ran away, content with that bruise on his pride. This should never have happened at all.

“He won’t stop!” Was all he could think to say, breathlessly and halfway to a yell. Coming around the other side of the podium, Keith barely saw the flash of brown in time to skid to a stop, Lance having circled the opposite direction to cut him off. He opened his mouth to shout again and made it three steps the other way before Lance’s weight crashed into him, taking them both to the floor. 

“Lance!” Shiro barked in his commander voice, just barely louder than Allura’s vehement cries of protest. “Enough! What the hell is going on?” 

Lance’s fingers sank into Keith’s hair. “Get him off of me!” Keith managed to scream, just before Lance pulled his head upwards and slammed it back against the floor. 

Keith’s vision unfocused as sharp pain shot through his brain. He heard more incoherent shouting and tried to throw a punch when he felt Lance gearing up for another blow, but in his confusion managed to miss, and a moment later Lance’s weight disappeared. 

Instantly Keith rolled onto his feet again. His head was spinning, he couldn’t see much more than gray walls, but his blood was rushing in his ears and he was ready to run for his damn life if he had to.

He didn’t have to. Before he’d taken so much as a step he felt arms settle around him— arms too large to belong to Lance. The low rumble of Shiro’s voice reached his ears, and he slumped gratefully into the embrace, eyes squeezed shut tight in an effort to make the room stop twirling. 

“Keith,” he heard dimly. “Hey, can you hear me?”

He managed a nod, even though it made him wince at the shard of pain that knifed through him. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” 

Bracing himself for the pain, Keith forced himself to open his eyes. At first he didn’t see anything but blinding white, but as his eyes fought to bring themselves back into focus, the rest of the scene began to piece itself together. 

Allura was holding Lance back. She had his wrists twisted behind his back, holding him in place easily with her Altean strength, though her face was disturbingly pale. Lance was fighting her tooth and nail, his shoes squeaking against the floor, and across the room the door was opening to admit a splotch of orange that could only be Coran, coming to investigate the noise. 

“What did you do?” Allura asked him through gritted teeth, apparently fighting to keep a hold on Lance that wouldn’t hurt him. The boy in question had his teeth bared in a feral snarl, a cruel light to his eyes that made Keith shudder, suddenly glad he’d chosen to run instead of fight. 

“N-nothing.” His tongue felt clumsy in his mouth. He probably had a concussion. Lance had hit him hard. “He just came after me.” 

“Like you don’t deserve it.” 

A visible shock went through the room at Lance’s words; so cold, so sharp, so utterly without anything resembling his usual melodrama. He stopped struggling against Allura, but the action seemed sullen, and he added on, “If these two knew any better they’d toss you out an airlock themselves.” 

“Lance!” exclaimed Allura, sounding positively scandalized while Shiro squeezed Keith’s shoulders just a little more tightly. “What has gotten into you? This is no way for a Paladin to behave.” 

“God, would you just shut up already?” Lance snapped in a tone that was barely recognizable. “What, no Altea left so you decided to become the princess of nagging?” 

Allura’s face crumpled in surprised hurt, but only for a moment before she propped her royal facade back up. Keith’s reaction was much more obvious— as extreme as the situation was, Lance going after him still made a little bit of sense. 

But going so far as to insult  _ Allura _ like that? That was all Keith needed to convince him that something was seriously wrong with Lance. 

The others apparently shared this opinion. “We should bring him to the infirmary for a scan,” said Coran grimly. Even he looked unsettled: he kept fidgeting with the ends of his gloves. “This could be something rather serious.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything in protest as Allura shifted to grip his elbows rather than his wrists in an effort to make him more comfortable. He just glowered at all of them as he was hustled towards the door. 

Shiro made a little worried sound in Keith’s ear. “Keith, you’re bleeding.” He held up his human hand to show him, crimson smeared across his fingers. “We should go to the infirmary, too.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Keith said in answer. It was very important that Shiro understood that. “I swear.”

“I know,” Shiro murmured, “I believe you.” He tugged lightly on Keith’s arm, prompting him to follow as Shiro moved towards the door. Keith acquiesced, still too confused by Lance’s behavior to do his usual show of bravado; just walking was making the room whirl around him in dizzying circles. He had no idea Lance was capable of hitting anyone that hard. 

“Do you have any idea about what happened?” Shiro was asking. Keith focused on his voice, using it to anchor himself even when he couldn’t see straight enough to know what hallway they were walking down. “Anything weird that you noticed?”

“Um, no? I thought he was working with Pidge and Hunk in the lab. But he came out of his bunk when I was walking by and just--” he cut himself off with a gulp. The pain in his head had distracted him for a while, but he could still hear the poison in Lance’s voice as he listed off his flaws. He’d sounded an awful lot like Iverson, if Iverson was carrying around years of resentment. “He-- uh, I think he smelled different? Maybe?”

“Ok, good detail.”

Somewhere nearby a door hissed, and a moment later Shiro was sitting him down on something soft, probably an infirmary cot. Now that he was no longer moving his vision began to steady-- Allura had Lance sitting on another cot like his, keeping him in place with two heavy hands on his shoulders while Coran dug through the shelves in search of his medical tablet. Shiro gave him a parting squeeze before heading in the advisor’s direction. 

Keith swallowed down a pained groan and put his head in his hands. Blocking out the harsh lighting helped the pain a bit, but he could still feel the prickle of someone’s gaze and knew it was Lance, staring him down. He didn’t look up to meet it. 

He heard Shiro say something to someone. It was too low to hear, but a few seconds later footsteps approached, and when he dared slit open his eyes he saw both Shiro and Coran’s boots standing before him. Low beeping followed as Coran scanned him, followed by a sigh of relief. 

“He does have a concussion, but a very minor one,” Coran said to Shiro. “He just needs a few hours’ rest and a cold compress.”

Shiro’s exhaled breath matched his. “Ok, thank you. I’ll be over to see about Lance in a couple of minutes.”

“Take your time,” Coran replied. Keith closed his eyes again, and kept them that way until he felt the mattress dip at his side. 

“Here you go, bud,” Shiro said softly, pressing something cool to the gash on the back of Keith’s head. He gave a quiet sigh of relief and leaned into it a tiny bit before forcing himself to take stock of the room again. 

Coran and Allura stood side by side next to Lance’s cot, Coran holding the tablet and Allura keeping Lance in place with one hand while they discussed whatever was on the screen in low tones. Lance still had his gaze fixed on Keith; if that boy had had laser vision, Keith would’ve been cut in half by now. 

He couldn’t help the shudder that went through him. Shiro felt it and spared a glance across the room, his expression settling into a solemn frrown. 

“Do you want to go to your room instead? You don’t have to stay here.”

Keith automatically shook his head, smothering the resulting wince as he reached up and pressed the compress to the wound himself, letting Shiro have his hand back. 

“No, I’m fine.” He wasn’t concerned about himself. He was mostly worried about Lance, and whatever it was that had made him go postal. Even from across the room he could still smell that strange scent he’d noticed in the hallway-- what if it was a virus of some kind? Or a parasite? Could it spread to the rest of them? More importantly, was it something that could be fixed?

As though reading Keith’s thoughts, Shiro sighed and turned towards him, putting his back to Lance. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. Chances are the pods will know how to fix it even if Allura and Coran don’t. That’s the upside to dealing with things that aren’t quite magic but aren’t quite science, either.” He gave Keith a wane smile, but he wasn’t listening. 

Instead he watched Lance over Shiro’s shoulder, almost as intensely as Lance was watching him. There was something predatory about that gaze, like he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce, and there was no way he was going to let his guard down when someone had that expression on their face. He knew better. 

Despite his concentration, Keith’s eyes did momentarily leave Lance when he saw Allura toss her silver hair over her shoulder. It was an annoyed, irritated motion, and as he watched the Princess let go of Lance to grip Coran’s tablet in both hands, scowling down at it like it was a particularly confusing puzzle box. 

Lance moved the moment she let go. 

Keith’s instincts were quicker than his thoughts. He didn’t register that he’d dodged until he hit the floor, having thrown himself out of Lance’s path right as he crashed into Keith’s cot. The room once again spinning around him, all Keith could do was use his heels to push himself backwards, dropping the compress in favor of shielding his head from any incoming blows. The room was loud with so many echoing voices all shouting at once-- he could barely tell them apart. 

He thought he heard Shiro and Allura, yelling at Lance. Footsteps reverberated through the floor and through his bones. After several seconds had passed with no punches raining down on him, Keith ever so cautiously looked up. 

This time it was Shiro who had Lance pinned, holding him tightly around his middle and a few inches off of the ground, trying to keep his kicking feet away from his shins. Lance wasn’t going quietly this time around: he growled and snapped and kicked and clawed at Shiro’s hold, all the while focusing his manic eyes on Keith, who could only watch in confused despair. 

“Enough!” Shiro was trying to tell him, to no avail. “Lance, stop! You can’t treat your teammates this way, you know that!”

“Fuck you!” was Lance’s only answer. Allura reached them a moment later, planting herself between him and Keith in the very image of regal authority. 

“Lance,” she said in a voice of stone, “Your behavior is unbecoming of a paladin. If you will not control yourself, you will be restrained.” 

Lance’s response was to aim a kick at the Princess’ stomach, which she easily dodged, grabbing hold of the offending limb and holding it captive. 

“Allura,” Shiro said. 

“Shiro,” she replied. Keith couldn’t see Allura’s expression, but Shiro’s was one of pained reluctance. “He’s lost his mind— he’s going to hurt someone if we don’t do something.”

Shiro’s eyes flicked to Keith. Then a sigh, and: “Fine.” 

Lance doubled his efforts to escape. For a half second it looked like he might succeed when he slammed his elbow into Shiro’s gut and left him gasping, but Allura was quicker than he was, and much stronger. 

“I’ll hold him,” she said, barely sounding winded. “Shiro, there’s a few pairs of mag cuffs in the armory, if you could fetch them. Coran, please ask Pidge and Hunk to come down. Maybe they’ll know what caused… all of this.” 

“They’ll know all right,” Lance piped up venomously. Apparently, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere and moved on to his usual favorite weapon: words. “They’re the ones always sticking me in the corner thinking I’m not smart enough to understand anything they say. Fucking brainiacs, always thinking they know the right answer.” 

Even Allura seemed surprised at that. Lance was practically frothing at the mouth, murderous intent coloring every line of his body, and Keith found himself scooting back just a little further.

That snapped Shiro out of their group trance. Keith expected him to go right for the doors, but first Shiro went over to him, fetching the compress from where it had been thrown and gingerly restoring it to its place.

“Come on, Keith, I’ll walk you back to your room on the way to the armory.” 

But Keith hesitated. Lance was terrifying right now, don’t get him wrong, but clearly he was sick somehow, and the last thing Keith wanted to do was walk away from a hurting teammate. Still Shiro gently helped him to his feet, murmuring something in his ear. 

“He might calm down with fewer people around.” 

Keith had to bite the inside of his lip to restrain a bitter reply. That was Shiro speak for ‘he might be calmer without you around because he clearly hates your guts’. 

“Fine,” Keith muttered back. “But someone has to come tell me when you guys figure it out.” 

Shiro offered him a wane smile, which he didn’t return, before wrapping an arm around his shoulders and turning them towards the door. 

_ Besides,  _ Keith reflected bitterly on the way back to his room,  _ what would you even do?  _ Lance had “forgotten” their last bonding moment. Keith didn’t need to be told twice to keep his distance. 

Despite his brooding, by the time they reached his bunk most of his negative thoughts had ebbed, leaving behind fuzzy weariness and a pounding headache. Shiro helped him as far as the bed and sat him down, applying pointed pressure to the compress cradled against Keith’s skull before letting go. 

“Keep that on, ok? And get some rest— I’ll wake you if anything happens.” 

Keith obligingly laid down, but even as he arranged himself into a more comfortable position he doubted whether he’d be able to sleep or not. He knew Lance would be hard pressed to escape Allura’s grasp a second time, but a part of him still feared waking up to Lance’s hands around his throat, or not waking up at all. 

“He’s gonna be ok. Don’t worry.” 

Shiro knew his comforts were pointless— Keith could see it in his eyes. But he was trying, so for once he decided to play along and nodded. 

“Go on,” said Keith, flapping a hand in Shiro’s direction. “I’ll be fine.” 

“I’ll be back soon,” Shiro promised. Then he was gone, and Keith finally allowed himself to curl into a ball and shake with fear. 

* * *

Binding Lance to the cot was one of the hardest things Shiro had ever had to do-- gladiator matches included. The struggling didn’t help. He fought every second, snarling and spitting insults at all three of them as they got the cuffs around his wrists and ankles. Once they were turned on they magnetized to the metal frame of the cot, and no matter how much he thrashed, Lance couldn't make them budge. 

As before, the next best option was words. Shiro had backed away from the cot as soon as the job was done, trying to disguise how shaken he was, but a few feet of distance were useless against that particular weapon. 

“Is this what you call leadership, Shiro?” Lance shouted at Shiro’s back. Shiro closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing, five in seven out, but Lance’s voice pierced right through. “You used to be my hero! I trusted you when you led us out here! And what did it get me? A broken soldier who can barely remember his own name!”

Shiro pressed a hand over his mouth. He felt sick. And the scent of brackish water and stinging citrus, finding him even with the distance, was only making it worse. 

“Shiro?” Allura’s voice was much softer than Lance’s, right behind his left elbow. “Are you alright?” 

He couldn’t answer. After a moment of silence she spoke again at an even lower volume. 

“We can-- if you need us to, we can make him stop--”

“No,” Shiro said immediately. Allura fell silent, and he took a few more careful breaths before continuing. “No, I’ll be fine. We don’t need to make this any worse for him than it already is.”

“Are you sure?” Allura asked with a light touch to his human arm. “He doesn’t seem to be holding anything back.”

Shiro nodded as forcefully as he could. “I’m sure.” He knew what it felt like to wake up in restraints and with bright lights in his eyes, and gags always made it worse. Whatever was wrong with Lance would fade eventually, and Shiro would never forgive himself if he hurt him more than was absolutely necessary. If it hadn’t been for Lance’s fake show of placidity earlier, he would’ve forbidden restraints altogether. 

He made himself meet Allura’s gaze. There was steel in it, as always, but for once he could detect how scared she was underneath, mirroring his own. Allura only held it for a moment before looking away and calling back to Coran. 

“Coran, did you summon Hunk and Pidge?”

“Yes Princess,” he responded dutifully as he continued his confused studying of the medical tablet. “They should be here in--”

_ Whoosh.  _ The door to the infirmary slid open in the middle of Coran’s sentence, and in rushed Hunk and Pidge, all four mice right on their heels. 

They both stopped dead when they saw Lance, Pidge’s jaw dropping and Hunk’s eyes widening into saucers. Lance was still fighting the cuffs, still screaming insults to the ceiling that reverberated around the room and came back at them five times over. 

After a short, shocked silence, Pidge asked, “What the  _ fuck?” _

“What did you do to him?” Hunk wailed before any of them could answer. He raced across the room to Lance’s side; Shiro only made it two steps before Lance zeroed in on his new target.

“Look who decided to show up,” he snarled, bringing Hunk to a confused stop. “Done playing with your plant?”

Hunk, to his credit, recovered quickly and made it the rest of the way to the cot. “Lance, what happened? What did they do to you?”

Lance’s answer was a low, mean laugh. “They didn’t do anything. Just like the two of you.” 

“What are you talking about?” Pidge asked, shuffling a few steps forward before stopping with a cautious glance in Shiro’s direction. “Shiro, what’s going on?”

Shiro gulped nervously. “We were hoping you could tell us. He just started attacking Keith out of nowhere.” 

“Is that what Keith said?” asked Hunk, his expression protective as he leaned over Lance’s cot, either oblivious to or ignoring his angry muttering. “Did you ask Lance for his side of the story?”

“He gave Keith a concussion, Hunk,” said Shiro. For a moment his anxiety slid into anger, feeling the same protective edge Hunk was experiencing, but he pushed it back. He had to remember— Lance wasn’t the enemy. “He chased Keith onto the bridge and slammed his head into the floor. When we took them down here to be scanned, the second Allura let him go he went after Keith again.” 

“That can’t be true!” Hunk protested. “Lance isn’t like that!”

“Lance isn’t like that,” Lance mocked, drawing the attention of the room back to him. “No, Lance never gets mad, he’s just the class clown. No need to pay attention to him.” 

“Hey,” said Hunk as he drew away from the cot, his previous concern melting into hurt, “that’s not what I meant.” 

“Of course it isn’t. You’re too much of a coward to say what you really think.”

Hunk took a step back. Any doubt that remained in his mind must’ve been erased by that last taunt, as he turned back to Shiro with a clenched jaw, who took it as an indication to continue his explanation. 

“Keith said he was supposed to be in the lab with the two of you.”

“He was,” answered Pidge. She moved towards Shiro, leaving a wide berth between herself and Lance, never looking away from him. “But he left-- he was poking at the plant and it spat sap all over him.”

“We told him to go wash off,” Hunk added quietly. 

Shiro ran a tired hand over his face. Allura, when he snuck a glance at her, looked much the same. “And neither of you thought to tell us? We don’t understand how things work up here yet-- alien substances always have a risk of being dangerous.”

“Ryner didn’t say it was,” said Pidge, folding her arms defensively. “She didn’t mention anything like this.”

“Ryner doesn’t know either,” Allura reminded them. “Your species hasn’t branched out far enough for other species to know about you. Ryner couldn’t have known if it could be dangerous to humans.”

Pidge and Hunk exchanged a guilty look between them. Shiro and Allura shared an exasperated one. 

“We’ll talk about safety procedures later,” Shiro said eventually. “We need to focus on Lance right now.”

Lance gave a loud scoff. Pidge jumped and Hunk looked back at him, but the rest of them stonily ignored the distraction. 

“Coran,” said the Princess, putting her shoulders back resolutely. “Come show the Paladins what you found on the scan-- perhaps they can make sense of it.”

Coran obligingly came forward, the tablet gripped tightly in his gloved hands. “It’s very strange. According to the scan, there’s nothing wrong with Lance at all.”

“Well that can’t be right,” Pidge grumbled. “Obviously.”

Coran nodded in agreement. “That’s what I thought, so I did a few individual scans of primary organs. The one of Lance’s brain is the one that caught my attention.” He turned the tablet around so that the rest of them could see. 

It was a scan of Lance’s brain, as Coran had described. However, it seemed to be moving in real time, tiny points of light erupting all over the surface and leaving trails as they streaked from one point to another. There must have been thousands of them going all at once, thousands more starting and ending simultaneously. It gave Shiro a headache to look at. 

“Wow,” murmured Pidge in a low, awed tone. “Are those his neurons firing?” 

“Yes, and we can see the pathways the signals travel along.” Coran followed one of the light paths with a finger, displaying how they moved. Pidge just stared for a few seconds longer, rapt. 

“Sometimes I forget how advanced Altea was.”

Hunk fidgeted in place. “Ok, yeah, that’s great, but what does it mean?”

“On its own? Nothing. But,” Coran turned the tablet back to himself and began swiping around. A short swipe, a long swipe, a few taps, two more swipes, and: “Compare it to the scans from his last stay in the pods, and…” He turned it back around, and Pidge’s jaw dropped. 

The lights were moving differently. And not just subtle differences, either-- in the old scans the lights were steady and calm; still fast, but more controlled than the current ones, which exploded and sprinted every which way. 

“They’re going in different directions,” Pidge pointed out. “Most of the ones now are going to a completely different part of his brain.”

“We came to the same conclusion,” Allura said with a nod. “But we weren’t sure what that meant for humans. Your brains work much differently than an Altean’s.”

“I mean, we don’t know that much either.” Pidge shifted anxiously on her feet and reached up to fiddle with her glasses. “We’re not brain surgeons, I’m not really educated on this, but if I had to make a guess, it would be that he’s interpreting stimuli differently. His senses give his brain the information, but instead of going to where it usually goes, it’s being routed into a more emotional reaction.” She paused, bit her lip, and tacked on, “Maybe.”

“So, what, the plant changed Lance’s brain structure just by getting sap on him?” Hunk sounded alarmed, and rightfully so; just thinking about the possibility made Shiro’s gut churn. 

Pidge seemed hesitant to confirm, unsure without her normal foundation of facts and knowledge, but Shiro didn’t share that hesitation. It didn’t necessarily matter if the details were correct, so long as they figured out how to fix it. 

“Makes sense to me,” he said, attracting the attention of the whole group. For a moment the rest of his sentence got stuck in his teeth, but he swallowed hard to soothe the desert in his throat and made himself continue. “We know things like trauma can change neural pathways. It’s not impossible.”

“But how do we fix it?” Hunk pressed. He was leaning forward on his toes, wringing the hem of his shirt in his two big hands, all of his usual anxious tells, and Shiro’s heart ached for him. Lance was his best friend. “Can we fix it?”

Shiro looked back at Pidge. Maybe it was unfair to put this much pressure on a fifteen-year-old, but she was the most intelligent person on the Castleship by far. If anyone could figure it out, it would be her. The others seemed to think the same. 

Pidge shrank back from their expectant gazes, clearly not agreeing with Shiro’s mental opinion. “Guys, I’m not-- I can’t fix this. I don’t know how! I’m a hacker, not a doctor or a surgeon or… or…” She clenched her fists and shook her head hard, refusing to look up at any of them. “I wouldn’t know what I’m doing!”

“I agree,” called Lance in a mocking, sing-song voice. It was rather jarring-- Shiro had managed to forget he was still in the room, but now he had all of their undivided attention. Lance gave a sharp smirk, enjoying the attention, and continued, “I’m not about to let Pidge go poking around in my head. It’s been what, a year, year and a half? And she still can’t find her brother or her father.” His eyes narrowed into a glare. “Everyone thinks you’re so goddamn smart, but you can’t do anything that really matters, can you?”

Pidge reeled back a few steps as though Lance had struck her. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, trying to disguise the effect he’d had, but her fists were clenched in her hoodie over her chest, failing to hide their shaking. 

Shiro put a firm hand on her shoulder and turned her away from Lance. “Pidge,” he said, leaning down to her eye level. She didn’t answer, so he dropped his volume further and repeated, “Katie.”

That got her to open her eyes, revealing a gloss of frightened tears. “Shiro, I can’t,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know what I’m doing-- I could hurt him. I could hurt him really bad.” 

“I know, I’m not asking you to do anything yet. All I’m asking is that you do some research. Call Ryner, try to figure out as much as you can about the plant and what it does. Can you do that?”

Pidge sucked in a deep breath and held it. A moment later she let it out again, and with it her hands fell free of her shirt, forming determined fists at her sides. 

“Yeah. I can do that.” 

Shiro gave her a proud smile. 

“I’ll go with you to the lab,” Allura said, quietly inserting herself into the conversation. “I’ll get a comm link established with Olkarion. Between the three of us, we should be able to figure something out.”

“What about Hunk?” asked Pidge. 

“I’m staying here.” The three of them broke out of their huddle to find Hunk staring stubbornly at Lance’s cot, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m staying with Lance until this is all over.”

“Are you sure about that, lad?” Coran questioned. “He’s been rather… rude.”

Lance’s face twisted into a sharp grin of sadistic glee. Shiro felt cold all the way to his toes. 

“I’ll be fine,” said Hunk. “He’s my friend. I’m not leaving him here alone.”

Coran protested that he wouldn’t be leaving the infirmary until the matter was resolved, but Shiro already knew it was in vain. Hunk looked an awful lot like his Lion at the moment-- sturdy, stable, and immovable-- and he knew from previous experience that when Hunk looked like that, you didn’t try to stop him. You just got out of his way. 

“Alright, we have a plan. Let’s get moving.”

* * *

Hunk meant what he said. The second Allura and Pidge left he found a chair and sat it right next to Lance’s cot. 

“What, you’re just gonna sit there?” Lance asked him viciously. “Sit there and do nothing?” When Hunk didn’t react, he scoffed and looked at the ceiling. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s all you ever do around here.” 

Hunk just sat back and folded his arms. He couldn’t say it didn’t hurt, hearing things like that coming from his best friend, but he could handle it. For Lance’s sake. 

The insults didn’t stop there, but Hunk did his best to block them out. Lance wasn’t in his right mind— just like when the wormhole spat them out on the space mermaid planet. Hunk hadn’t been in his right mind, but Lance didn’t leave him there. He didn’t abandon him then, so Hunk wasn’t going to abandon him now. 

Half a varga later, it was that position by the cot that let him see how Lance was straining ever so subtly at his cuffs. Subtly, but so hard that blood was beginning to well up. 

Hunk, hoping not to alert Lance, nonchalantly rose from his seat and crossed the room to the central podium, where Coran stood flipping through charts and indexes, presumably searching for more information on the suspect plant. He waited until he was mere inches from the Altean before speaking, keeping his voice as low as he could and hoping Coran wouldn’t jump out of his skin. 

“Hey, Coran?”

Luckily, he didn’t jump. He merely gave an answering hum, not slowing in his skim reading. 

“Do you have bandages, or something I can tuck in Lance’s cuffs? He keeps pulling on them and he’s starting to bleed.”

Coran frowned, but nodded his assent and stepped down from the podium. He gestured to Hunk to follow as he headed to the opposite side of the room, where he knew there were shelves of supplies stashed inside the wall panels. Coran opened one and began to rummage through the shelves, just as another voice found them. 

“What’s going on?” Shiro asked. Hunk managed a little smile for him, hoping to smooth the concerned lines of his brow, but it was a vain effort. 

“Lance is pulling on the cuffs,” Hunk explained again. “I just want to make them softer so he doesn’t hurt himself.”

Shiro’s forehead creased further. Coran withdrew from the cabinet, a roll of plush Altean gauze in hand. 

“Here you are, lad,” he said, handing it to Hunk before continuing. “Just a suggestion, but there is another option we haven’t considered yet.” 

Hunk raised an eyebrow. Shiro shifted on his feet, like he knew what Coran was going to say and already didn’t like the idea. 

“We could sedate him. We shouldn’t put him in a pod, they might get confused since according to the scan, nothing is technically wrong with him. But I do have some powerful tranquilizers.”

“I don’t like the idea of it,” said Shiro. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced over to Lance’s cot. “The last thing I want is for him to feel betrayed when he comes out of this.”

“He’s already bleeding, Shiro,” Hunk murmured. He understood where Shiro was coming from-- his own stomach was churning at the thought-- but they didn’t have a lot of choices. “Wouldn’t it be just as bad for him to come back to himself all bloody and hurting?”

Shiro ran a stressed hand through his hair. He was as wound up as Hunk had ever seen him, and for good reason, but a choice had to be made. Eventually, in a voice heavy with guilt, he said, “Alright, fine. Just-- be careful, Coran.”

“Of course.” Coran turned back to the cabinet to start looking for the proper tools, and Hunk directed his attention to Shiro, who was alarmingly pale. 

“Why don’t you go check on Keith,” he suggested gently. “Get him caught up. Coran and I can look after Lance.”

Shiro looked back at the cot again, conflicted, but after a few moments consideration let himself slouch in defeat. “Fine. But I’ll be back.”

Hunk just nodded, and didn’t move until Shiro had turned his back to him and began walking towards the door. Then he went back to the cot, armed with his roll of gauze; the sight of which made Lance scowl when he saw it. 

“Changed your mind about the gag?” he spat. Hunk’s breath came in a little fast, but he held back the shock as he knelt at the cot’s side and began to unroll the gauze. 

“No. Just making things a little more comfortable.” 

“A comfortable captive is still a captive.”

Hunk bit the inside of his lip and elected not to answer that particular jab. Tearing off a strip of gauze, he began to tuck it inside one of the cuffs, in the small space that existed in between the metal and Lance’s skin. Lance tried to pull away from it, struggling in his bonds, but he couldn’t get far. Hunk tried to ignore the bad taste in his mouth. 

“It’s gonna be ok, Lance. We’re gonna fix this. No one else is gonna get hurt.” 

Lance glowered at the ceiling, his lack of response just as pointed as his previous insults. Hunk finished cushioning the first cuff just as Coran came over with a prepped syringe in hand; he moved aside and let Coran have his old spot as he moved to Lance’s other hand. 

“You’ll feel a bit of a prick,” Coran said, sounding surprisingly composed. “Just for a moment.”

“Fuck you,” was Lance’s scathing reply. Good thing Coran had never gotten the hang of Earth swear words, otherwise he might have been offended. As it was he didn’t even blink, just carefully found a vein and administered the sedative. 

When Coran moved away, Lance turned his head and focused his unrelenting glare on Hunk instead. He tried his best to ignore it as he continued tucking the gauze inside all four cuffs, but he could feel the gaze crawling over him like fire ants made of actual fire, with a good dose of vitriol and resentment mixed in. 

Eventually he finished and resumed his position by Lance’s head, ready to wait for as much longer as it would take. Lance stared at him for a few more minutes before finally looking back up at the ceiling. 

“You’re not going to fix me,” he muttered. “I don’t need to be fixed. I’m just sick of being treated like a joke.” It might have been a tender moment, if Lance hadn’t spat the words out like they tasted bad. 

“We’ll talk about that,” Hunk answered in as composed a tone as he could manage. “Later. When you’re yourself again.”

Lance didn’t deign to answer. 

* * *

Shiro took his time going to Keith’s room. He took slow, even breaths to match his steps, trying not to think about what was happening in the infirmary. If he thought about it too much he’d start to go back to the night he returned to Earth, to the restrictive leather straps and the officers shrouded in protective gear, the terror of fighting the sedative and losing, not knowing where he’d wake up. He couldn’t think about Lance being put through the same thing. If he did, he’d break. 

He didn’t knock on Keith’s door when he reached it. He let it slide open and stood in the doorway, peering into the shadows of the dark room. Keith was lying on his side, facing the wall, and to an untaught gaze seemed to be fast asleep. But Shiro knew better.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Keith rolled over. He still looked a bit pale, but his eyes were clearer, and he left the compress behind on his pillow as he levered himself upright. 

“What’s the word?” he asked, dodging Shiro’s question. “Do you know what’s happening with Lance?”

“Kind of.” Shiro leaned his back on the door frame. The door mechanisms whirred quietly in his ear, and he could feel the taps between his shoulder blades as it tried to close, but he didn’t care. It was grounding. “Pidge has a hypothesis. She’s talking with Allura and Ryner now.” 

“Ok.” There was a pause, and Shiro knew Keith was studying him. He let him, and eventually Keith said, “He said shit to you too, didn’t he?”

Shiro shrugged and looked away from Keith’s face. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not himself.” 

If the roles had been reversed, Shiro would’ve told him that of course it mattered, words and actions could still hurt even when the other person didn’t mean them, but that wasn’t Keith’s style. He just narrowed his eyes, then reached out a hand and beckoned Shiro closer. 

Shiro obliged, taking a seat next to Keith on the bed. Keith didn’t say anything further; just put a hand on his shoulder, and when Shiro didn’t protest, pressed closer and leaned his head there as well. 

Shiro pressed his cheek to Keith’s hair and gave himself a moment to acknowledge the pressure in his mind, the force of resisting all the triggers frantically blaring their alarms from the edges. 

“Don’t go back yet,” Keith said softly. “Give yourself a break.”

“I should be there. They might need me.”

“For what? Until Pidge figures stuff out, there won’t be anything you can do in there except let Lance tear you down.”

“I’m the leader.” Shiro’s stomach twisted with guilt. “I should be there for my team.”

“You will be,” Keith insisted. “But you’re no good to them if your brain is trying to abandon ship.”

Shiro sighed. He knew Keith was right, but it was hard to admit that under the weight of… everything. So he said nothing, and Keith easily interpreted his silence for what it was: acquiescence. He would go back in a few minutes. For now, he could just close his eyes and rest. 

Only for a moment.

* * *

“I can’t do it.”

Pidge put her head in her hands, hiding from the messy lab, the expectant gazes of Allura and Ryner, and most of all, from the neon blue flower lurking in the background, taunting her. 

“You’re the only one who can,” Allura said. 

“No, you don’t understand, I  _ can’t.”  _ She finally looked up, but refused to meet Allura’s eyes. “I don’t know anything about how a human brain works, I haven’t been trained. You’re the magic space princess, why don’t  _ you  _ do it?”

Allura pressed her mouth into a thin, stern line. “Because it’s not his quintessence that has been affected. Humans don’t contain enough concentrated quintessence for me to change their bodies.”

“You are the Green Paladin,” Ryner reminded her gently, her voice distorted by the video connection. “Remember what I taught you-- everything, even organic matter, is data at its core.”

“But those were plants!” Pidge exclaimed. “The human brain is infinitely more complicated! Besides, the scan couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong-- how am I supposed to tell what to change to make him normal again when I don’t even know what normal looked like at that level?”

For a moment both of the other women were silent. Then Allura’s face brightened. “The Blue Lion!”

“What?” Pidge had to struggle to keep her tone civil. “What do you mean ‘The Blue Lion’? Blue isn’t my Lion.”

“You’re right, she’s not,” Allura said. There was a smile playing at the edges of her lips. “But all of the Lions are intimately familiar with their Paladins. She could guide you in your work with Lance.”

“Yeah, maybe she could, but again,  _ she’s not my Lion.” _

Allura shot her a disapproving look. “Yes, I know that Pidge. However, the Blue Lion is the most adaptable. The most friendly. She called to Keith back on your home planet, did she not? She could do the same for you, especially when it’s her Paladin who needs help.”

Pidge opened her mouth to argue again, but hesitated and closed it again. What Allura was saying did make sense, and if anyone was the expert on the Lions it was her, but… the possibility remained. If she screwed up, she could hurt Lance. Hurt him bad, hurt him permanently. And if that happened she’d never be able to forgive herself. 

“Pidge,” Allura said, much more softly than before. “I believe that you can do this. Lance is hurting, and he needs our help.”

Over her shoulder Pidge caught a glimpse of that stupid flower, swaying slightly in its pot, and suddenly her eyes were prickling with tears. She squeezed them shut and looked down, trying to hide them from Allura, but the following sniffle gave her away. 

“Oh, Pidge.” The Princess bent slightly and gently grasped her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“It--” her voice got caught in her throat, and she had to fight to finish her sentence. “It was my fault.” 

“You can’t blame yours—“

“It was! Shiro was right, we should’ve been more careful. We should’ve taken Lance to the infirmary as soon as it happened. But we— we just laughed at him.” A tear streaked down each of her cheeks. “We screwed up, Allura. I screwed up. And he was right, I can’t even find Matt—“

“Pidge.” Allura squeezed her shoulders hard. “Listen to me. You can’t change the past. Maybe you did the right thing, maybe you didn’t. But guilt will do nothing but paralyze you. You mustn’t let it. Lance is depending on you.”

As difficult as it was, Pidge sucked in a deep breath and tried to think. They didn’t really have any other options, did they? Like Ryner said, she was the Green Paladin, only she could interface with organic matter this way. And they needed Lance back to normal to operate Voltron; she couldn’t imagine him working together with any of them in his condition. 

Softly, as though from far away, the memory of a voice floated through her mind. 

_ If you worry about all the things that could go wrong…  _

Pidge sniffled again and wiped her cheeks. “Ok. Yeah. You’re right.”

Allura managed a weak smile. On the screen behind her, Ryner seemed pleased as well. 

“I’ll get the headbands from the armory,” said the Princess as she straightened up. “Then we’ll head back to the infirmary.” She paused, her smile faltering for a few seconds. “Let’s hope… well. Let’s hope.” 

With that, she took herself out of the room. Pidge stayed where she was, trying to get her emotions back in control while avoiding looking in Ryner’s direction. Unfortunately, the Olkari had no understanding of human body language, so it didn’t stop her from speaking.

“I believe you’re doing the right thing. You’re a Paladin, and the Green Lion wouldn’t have chosen you if you weren’t capable.” 

Pidge huffed out a shaky laugh, staring straight down at the floor. “Really? Sometimes I think— I mean, if you’d been sleeping for ten thousand years, you’d probably choose the first person to show up, too.” 

“From what I understand of Altea,” Ryner answered gently, “the Lions don’t work that way.” 

“God.” She took her glasses off and ran her sleeve over her eyes. “I know none of you get this, but on Earth I’m barely more than a kid. And sometimes all of this, having the literal entire universe on my shoulders, feels like too much.” 

Ryner’s expression grew solemn. “I understand. I was a mere twenty decaphoebes when the Galra came to Olkarion. War is a heavy burden, and it is often those least responsible that bear the brunt of it.”

“Yeah,” Pidge said in a hoarse whisper. “You can say that again.” 

The door hissed, and Pidge looked up in surprise to see Allura had already returned, two of the training deck headbands clenched in her hands. 

“That was quick.” 

Allura’s cheeks flushed pink. “I thought it prudent to hurry.”

“Right.” She turned back to the holoscreen, but before turning it off, murmured a quick thank you to Ryner. The Olkari smiled in response, then Pidge hit the end button and stepped out from behind the safety of her lab bench. Her feet felt like lead as she followed Allura back out into the hall, the usual peaceful silence of the Castle pressing down on her like the pressure of the deep sea. 

She and Allura didn’t speak during the walk. The nerves were churning in Pidge’s stomach too hard to even consider it, and Allura had tension in her frame that betrayed her anxiety. The silence between them held until they turned the last corner and saw the figure in red, leaning against the wall across from the infirmary entrance. 

“Keith?” He jumped at Allura’s voice, but visibly relaxed upon seeing who was approaching. “What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I was-- I mean, I am.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Just figured I should stay close. Just in case.”

If Allura asked what he meant by that, Pidge didn’t hear. She was distracted by Keith; partially by how pale he was, but also by the smear of dried blood just barely visible on the side of his neck. Shiro had mentioned the concussion, but seeing the physical evidence, and knowing it was Lance who had done it, was jarring. 

Keith’s eyes found hers, and the look of grim wariness in them dragged her back to reality, where he was asking, “You guys have a plan?”

Pidge nodded. “Yeah, kinda. I hope so. It’s… really complicated.”

He didn’t question her any further. Just nodded his understanding and looked back at the door. “I’ll be here. Good luck.”

Her next exhale was shaky. “Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”

The aura inside the infirmary was much the same as outside. A tense silence filled the room. Lance was still bound to his cot, though now he appeared to be asleep. Whether by choice or by sedation, Pidge couldn’t tell. 

Hunk sat beside him. He had heavy bags under his eyes, but even when they walked in he didn’t tear his eyes from Lance for longer than a second. Coran hovered nearby, monitoring Lance’s vitals on his tablet, trying to keep an eye on his patient without being overbearing.

The sound of the door opening interrupted Shiro’s anxious pacing. In seconds he was at their side, that familiar expression of concern on his face, tinged with unfamiliar apprehension. 

“Did you guys figure something out?”

Pidge nodded, clenching her jaw in an attempt to feign confidence. You know, fake it till you make it. 

“We’ll need to use the headbands,” said Allura with a quick glance at the cot. “Should we sedate him, or—?”

“Coran already did.” Judging by his tone, Shiro wasn’t a fan of that decision. “He was pulling on the cuffs and started bleeding.” 

“Probably the right choice. Pidge?”

With an anxious gulp, Pidge followed the Princess.

Lance was dead unconscious. It was strange, seeing him so still, so lifeless, when usually he was so animated. A slight smile twitched at the edge of Pidge’s mouth as she thought about him sitting at the dining table, spinning his spoon over and under his knuckles, never able to sit still. It faded when the smell set in; it was the same as the one that had filled the lab after the flower’s attack, Clorox lemon and musty damp. 

Hunk gently lifted his head from the cot pillow, allowing Allura to settle the headband into place. 

Pidge perched herself on the edge of the cot. For a moment her fingers fidgeted, uselessly twisting into the hem of her hoodie. Then she reached out and took Lance’s hand. It was hard to ignore the cuffs keeping it pinned down, hard to keep hold when his fingers couldn’t respond, but she did it anyway. And, if she was being honest, it wasn’t entirely for Lance’s benefit. 

“Pidge?” Allura asked. “Are you ready?”

She breathed in deep. Let it out. Then she reached out with her free hand and took the headband from her. 

“Yeah. I’m ready.” 

* * *

At first, all she could see was darkness. After a few seconds a light ignited in the shadows, and colors began to unfold like the petals of a flower— and no, she didn’t miss the irony of that. 

There were a lot of colors, hints of every hue under the rainbow, shifting around her like a kaleidoscope. But the most prominent one was blue, all different shades, rolling and crashing like waves.

A silver light appeared at her feet. It began to unspool, leading away, but after only a few feet it split. The paths grew the further it went and branched into dozens, hundreds more, doubling back on themselves and defying gravity to float over her head and away into the confused tangle of choice. 

_ I don’t know where to go. There’s too many choices. _

“It’s alright, Pidge.” Allura’s voice was distant and muffled. “Take it one step at a time. Look down, just at the first fork in the road.”

She did. There wasn’t any difference between the two that she could see. Maybe that the blue around one was slightly darker than the blue around the other, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t not be sure, she couldn’t screw this up now, but—

“Pidge. Breathe.”

When did she stop breathing? Did she even need to breathe here? 

“Blue is there with you. Can you feel her?”

She certainly felt something. It was different from Green with her unfailing curiosity, always wanting to explore every inch of Pidge’s mind, just to know. This was softer. Like a mother’s hug. If she wasn’t in Lance’s head right now, she would’ve teared up. God she missed her mom.

“Focus, Katie.” That wasn’t Allura— Shiro, maybe. He was the only one who called her that. “Let Blue show you the way. She will, you just have to trust her.”

Right. Right. Just follow. 

She let Blue turn her, following her gentle pressure. It was towards the path surrounded by lighter blue. A foot or so after that there was another branch, this time into three. Blue led her down the lighter one once again.

_ There’s too many. I’ll never get through them all. _

“It’s alright, Katie. Take as long as you need.” 

“Remember what Ryner said. It’s all data. Treat it like data.”

Blue nudged her down another road. She was seeing the patterns now: lighter blue was right. The blue that was like a peaceful lagoon sparkling in the sun, not the dark, roiling blue of an Atlantic storm. 

_ Ok. I think I’ve got it.  _

“You can do this.” 

_ I can do this. _

One path at a time. 

* * *

The first thing he felt while waking was confusion. He didn’t remember falling asleep. The lights were unusually bright on the other side of his eyelids, and when he tried to move and stretch his cramped limbs, he couldn’t. The dull press of pain when he tried was what led him to forcing his eyes open despite the weight trying to keep them closed. Things were blurry, but Lance recognized the round face above him. 

“Hunk?”

“Hey, Lance.” His voice sounded weird. Almost relieved. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh, groggy?” He turned his head and tried to reach up to rub his eyes, but his hand wouldn’t budge, and pain rippled up again from his wrist. “What’s goin’ on? Did something happen?” He blinked several times and succeeded in clearing his vision enough to see the other people gathered around his bed. Allura, Coran, Pidge, Shiro, and there was maybe a glimpse of red before the hiss of a door. But this wasn’t his bed; it was too lumpy. Too narrow.

“What do you remember?” Hunk asked him. Lance frowned and blinked some more.

“Why? What’s—“ he tried to sit up, but his wrists burned with the effort. “Ow! What the—“

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” Hunk laid a hand on his forearm. “You’re fine. Just tell us what you remember last.”

Only then did the ominous nature of the words sink in, but Lance tried his best to resist his instant urge to hyperventilate. After all, Hunk was there. He trusted Hunk. 

“Ok, um… we were in the lab, and your guys’ weird flower threw up on me, so I went to shower off.”

“Good, great. What’s the very last thing before you woke up?”

“Uh…” Lance searched his mind for an answer, and eventually landed on a rather vague one. “Footsteps. In the hallway outside my room.”

“That would’ve been Keith,” murmured Shiro, though obviously not to him. Lance lifted his head and craned his neck, only to suck in a sudden panicked breath. He wasn’t in his room, he was on a cot in the infirmary, and there were cuffs around his wrists and ankles, keeping him pinned.

“What the— Hunk, what the hell is going on—“

“Sorry, sorry!” Hunk squeaked. He immediately pressed the release button on the left cuff, allowing Lance to yank it free as he leaned over for the next. “We just had to be sure!”

“Sure of what?!” The moment he was released Lance sat up and hauled himself back, away from all of the cuffs, cooling into a ball. There were bandages around his wrists and ankles, stained ever so slightly with red. “What the fuck, guys?”

“The flower goop did something to you,” said Pidge. It was only now that Lance noticed the headband in her lap. “Made you really… aggressive.”

“What?”

“You were rather rude,” Coran chimed in, a false cheeriness plastered over his face. 

“And that required restraints?” Lance couldn’t help the betrayal in his tone, but Hunk’s upset expression dulled the edge. 

“It wasn’t just insults, buddy,” he said, and Lance’s stomach dropped. 

“What did I do?”

“You gave Keith a concussion.” When Lance looked over, Shiro had his arms folded, and he had a cautious frown on his face. “And you probably would’ve done more if we hadn’t stopped you.” 

“I…” he couldn’t think of anything to say. What do you say after something like that?

“It’s ok,” Hunk said again. “We know it wasn’t you. Don’t worry, we got it all sorted out. It shouldn’t happen again.” 

“I… I, uh, I don’t remember any of that.” 

Hunk moved a little closer to him, and when Lance didn’t recoil, scooped him up into a hug. Lance loved Hunk’s hugs, they made him feel so safe, and he willingly relaxed into the hold. The cot shifted as Pidge crawled over to join the hug, pressing her forehead against Lance’s shoulder. 

“I’m so glad you’re ok,” she whispered. 

Lance managed an unsettled chuckle. “It’s a little weird hearing that when I don’t remember what happened.”

“Sorry,” she answered, “but it’s true.” 

“Coran, will you do one more scan?” Allura asked, hidden from Lance’s sight by Pidge and Hunk. “Just to be sure.”

“Right away, Princess.” 

A hand landed on his shoulder. It was Shiro, who was now smiling softly. Lance took that to mean he was satisfied with his explanation and smiled back. 

If only he could remember what all the fuss was about. 

* * *

He didn’t see so much as a glimpse of Keith until the next day. Everyone spent the whole evening coddling and comforting him, which was nice, don’t get him wrong, but it was unnerving. Being treated so nicely because of events he couldn’t remember. Even worse was the way they were looking at him— with a hint of wariness, like they were watching for signs that he would snap again. 

So the next day he brushed them all off, even Hunk, and said he wanted to go talk to Blue. Which was true, especially after Pidge told him how she helped cure him, but he could make a quick pit stop first. 

Lance found him in Red’s hangar, a panel open on her leg and an array of tools spread out on the floor. It had taken some doing, but eventually Coran had given in and taught him how to do some of Red’s maintenance. Lance wasn’t surprised to find him doing it now, he tended to when he was stressed and Shiro wouldn’t let him on the training deck, but now that he found him he wasn’t sure what to say. After a few moments of nervous hovering near the door he almost noped out, but at that exact moment Keith stuck his head out from around Red. It was too far away for Lance to read his expression, but he imagined he was scowling. 

“What, Lance?”

Lance took a bracing breath.  _ Ok, this is fine, just a fun chat with a teammate. Nothing to be nervous about. _

So he strode over, a winning smile on his face, and said, “Hey, Keith. What’s up buddy?”

Yeah, he was definitely scowling. His hair was all a mess, except for the part pulled into its little ponytail, and there were streaks of grease all over his face. 

“What do you want?” 

He shouldn’t have been, but Lance was surprised by the venom in his tone. It had been a while since he and Keith had gotten into a proper argument. 

Well, technically it hadn’t been, had it? The thought sobered him, and he didn’t try to fake nonchalance when he answered. 

“I just came to say sorry. About the whole concussion thing.” 

Keith’s jaw ticked in irritation as he looked away. “Sure.”

Lance waited, but Keith didn’t say anything else. Just went back to work on Red, leaving Lance in a silence so awkward it made him shift on his feet and clear his throat. Leave it to Keith to make even an apology a social disaster. 

“I mean, I don’t remember anything, so… we can just… pretend it never happened, yeah?”

This time Keith scoffed at him. “Seems to be a pattern for you.”

“Hey,” said Lance, offended. “I really don’t remember this time!”

“This time?” Keith answered sarcastically, and Lance kicked himself. 

“Come on, man—“

With a loud sigh, Keith took a step back from Red and swung the plate shut, the  _ clang  _ echoing through the room. He turned to Lance and crossed his arms. 

“Listen,” he said, clearly through gritted teeth. “Whether you remember or you don’t, it wasn’t you. It was whatever was in that flower. So let’s just drop it.”

When he’d walked in, that was exactly the answer Lance had been looking to get. But now something about it tasted sour. Whether he remembered it or not, he’d seen the look on Shiro’s face when he asked about it. He could feel the tension crackling in the air like static— if he didn’t fix this, it would only fester. He couldn’t let it impact Voltron. Too much depended on them.

So he put his big boy pants on and said, “No, I don’t think we should. I think— I get the feeling you’re pretty pissed off.” 

Keith huffed a bit half hearted laughter. “No, Lance, of course not. A teammate chases me down and slams my head into the floor? No, not angry at all.”

Ok, now Lance was getting a little pissed, too. “God forbid I try to be nice,” he hissed. Keith’s expression twisted, and Lance could see the wrinkles in his jacket sleeves when his fists clenched into the fabric. 

“Except that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he snarled, eyes snapping sparks. “You’re not really doing this to be nice, are you? You just want the whole thing to go away and not get in the way of Voltron. So go ahead. Go back to the others and tell them we worked it all out. It doesn’t matter.” Keith was seething, and for a split second Lance wondered if this is how he looked during his chunk of missing time. 

“It does matter,” insisted Lance. “Voltron is too important to risk over a stupid fight.”

Silence fell. Keith was just looking at him, staring with a blank face, but Lance refused to squirm. They had to work this out, and he’d much rather do it without making one of the others mediate like they were in elementary school. 

Luckily Keith wasn’t known for his patience, and eventually he responded. 

“You know what the worst part was?”

Lance bit the inside of his cheek. “No,” was what he said, even though he wanted to be sarcastic and say he didn’t know what any of the parts were. 

Keith didn’t often make eye contact, but right now he was looking at Lance dead on. “The worst part was that I didn’t even notice anything was wrong at first. Not until you started throwing punches.”

“What?” That didn’t make sense. “Did I talk shit to you, too?”

Keith nodded once. Lance sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, all of the anger leaking out of him all at once. 

“None of the others mentioned that.” 

“Because I didn’t tell them.” His eyes dropped away. “It wasn’t important.”

“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Lance’s heart sank. “You couldn’t tell the difference because I sounded the same as I usually do.”

This time Keith turned his whole head away, looking up at Red’s dormant grey eyes as though for comfort. “Only when you talk to me.” 

Hunk had told him the things he’d said to Allura and Pidge. Shiro wouldn’t tell him if he’d said anything to him, but the fragile look on his face meant he didn’t have to. He never thought the things he teased Keith about were as bad as that, but… 

But it wasn’t really up to him, was it?

“Look, Keith, I’m sorry.” Keith’s lip curled, so Lance rushed to finish, “I really, honestly am. Even if I don’t remember. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

For another long moment Keith just looked at him. Then his arms fell to his sides, and with a soft sigh he said one word.

“Ok.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is probably not how brains work but I'm not a neurosurgeon ok I just write whump


End file.
